Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1887-02-04
Rejected Patents.
Correspondence OF the Standard.

/ Correspondence of the Standard.
There are ten books in the secret al
chivcs of the United States Patcn
Office for which patent attorneys il
! Washington would be willing to Civ
100000. They are the books contain
ing the names and addresses of inven
! tors whose cases have been rejected
during the past ten years. There ha
been an average of $4,000 cases flee
in .he Patent Office every year for tn,
last ten years, and Il yearly average O
$4,000 patents granted. Last yea
there were $4,000 applications file,
and $4,000 patents issued, the larges
number in any one year. On thi.
showing something like 60 per cent. o
the applications have been patented
So there have been during the last ten
Years about 100000 rejected cases
These in part include cases defeated
i'll intcrfcrcnccs and applications al
lowed, but on which final fees have
not been paid.
Now good attorneys get fully 80 pei
celt. OF their cases allowed and pa
tented; hence there must be some rea.
SOL for only GO per cent. of the appli.
cations being allowed The reason is
this: fully 5000 inventors every year
make out their own cases ard try to
get them through the Patent Office
Not knowing the routine they almost
invariably get involved in the mcshcs
OF red tape and the intricacics of Pa
tclt Office procedure. The difficulty
mly be slight, Il mere informality, a
objective drawing, an Improperly
wprdcd application, an indefinite
specification, or Il slight interference
requiring few amendments which Il
skl!lful patent attorney could make in
half an hour But to the inventor
these prove an insurmountable obsta-
Gle; his application is rejected and he
gives up in disgust or despair.
Applications for patents in the Uni
ted States Patent Office go first to the
twenty-cight principal examiners, ac-
cording To the subject matter. If they
are rejected, two years are allowed in
which to amend them or take other
necessary action. Ii no action shall
have been taken at the end OF two
years, such cases are treated as aban-
doncd and are sent to the division
where they are entered in the books
which the patent attorneys so much
covet. Fully $4,000 of the rejected
cases of the last ten years fall under
these conditions. At Il low estimate
2J,0O0 OF these rejected cases, put in
the hands Of competent attorney,
could be patented. A patent attor-
ney's fees on such conditional cases
would be about $25 per case-a gross
sum of $625, 900. Count out disgusted
inventors and those not able to pav,
still an enormous number would get
out patents if they knew how. But
the trouble is just hcrc-no one out
side the Patent Office is allowed ac-
cess to those file books, and without
them they cannot learn the name and
address of inventors. Then again,
there are some $1,000 cases now living
in the Examiners rooms awaiting the
two years limit. These are still more
valuable, for if they are taken up be-
fore the time-limit expires, the initial
fees do not lapse, while in the other
cases they would have to be repaid
The practice in the United States
Patent Oii.rc Was not always thus.
During Grants first term, for period
OF about year, attorneys were allowed
access to all lettcr-books, and previous
to that had been allowed access to the
files OF abandoned cases, but there was
q constant scramble and not infre-
quently downright fights over them,
and about 1873 the Patent Office made
them secret. -